The debut album of the project Opaque Lucidity, lining-up musicians from two Russian bands, Aglaomorpha and Risus Sardonicus, carries the listener to a world of music woven of dark ambient and atmospheric funeral doom metal in the spirit of Until Death Overtakes Me, and lyrics building on spiritual development of the consciousness and written by the influence of zen buddhism, dzogcheng, teachings of philosophers and different esoterics of literature.

It’s hard to figure out a lyrical concept or message in this band, because literally all the info on this disc is in Russian. Some research tells us, that they are lyrically influenced by spiritual life, influenced by several philosophers and esoteric literature. I let the music and artwork speak for itself then!

Musically this band is not an easy listen. It hovers somewhere between doom, dark ambient, soundscapes and even film-music! From the very first tone, I was sucked into their dark world of sounds in my subconsciousness. I’m impressed by the craftsmanship of these guys; they use a ton of instruments ranging from gongs, violins, triangles, keyboards, piano, sampling, vocals and guitars. This whole disc feels like a creepy, dark nightmare, but in a pleasant and beautiful way.

There are four songs on this album, but they listen away as just one long dark trip to a dream world. I’m really impressed by how good this actually is! Sometimes it reminds me of the film-music, which Jorg Buttgereit used for his movies Nekromantik, Schramm and Der Todesking. There are also resemblances with bands like Goblin and Tangerine Dream. The occasional heavy doom riffs give it a more Gravetemple, Ascend and even Sunn 0))) feel to it!

People with a taste for really dark, experimental music, should definitely check out this band. It’s a dark ride, which will haunt you for a very long time!

Author: RoyBalowski

Solitude Productions25.10.2009, 14:44

Review
Brutalism
5+/5

Dark ambient Down-Tempo Doom spawned from the Russian Federation. Dark, creepy and haunted is the feeling created within the aura of this debut album. Opaque Lucidity will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Zen influenced to bring it's listener to a spiritual level of what I term as a meditative horror. A cloud of deep drepression is at the nucleus of this album's atmosphere bringing you to a higher conciousness of an esoteric level making this album a very unique piece of art. I highly recommend Opaque Lucidty and with honor give it a +5/5 rating

Author: Kindra RavenMoon

Solitude Productions25.10.2009, 14:43

Review
Live4metal

The misery is coming thick and fast, (or should that be thick and slow?) as we have another slab of atmospheric Funeral Doom, this time from Russia, with Opaque Lucidity, which features members of both Aglaomorpha and Risus Sardonicus.
This, their debut album, consists of 4 tracks, which average out at just over 10 minutes each. At times the album is completely stripped back to a thin layer of atmospheric keyboards and a desolate, despairing growled vocal. To some this might not be the most pleasant aural experience they'll ever encounter, but to me, this is a thing of beauty.
Minimalist ambience that's just about as beautiful as it gets, although the same cannot be

said for the vocals, which sound like they're from some of the scarier moments from Resident Evil 4 (the bit in the sewer where the large parasites attack you). The two contrasting styles work very well together and this album comes very highly recommended, as do most releases from Solitude Productions and its sub-label BadMoodMan Music

This band, formed in 2007, plays an interesting mixture of dark ambient/drone/funeral doom. The four-track material of Artem (vocals), Evgeny (vocals) and Nikita (music) is mainly built on samples but here and there there’s a distorted guitar too. This experimenting, hard yet easily digestible stuff is a good starter.

The opener Induality, Not Induality starts off with sounds evoking sad, vexed strings which then are cut off by the noisy sound of a distorted guitar. The growling vocals, the low, dark mood of the synth base, the muffled sound of the guitar create a balanced yet complex structure – sometimes it falls back into helplessness, sometimes it breaks out from there. It could also be a symbol of a grasping yet falling back soul.
In The Insane Dance Of Stars is a heavy, dark tune (for some seconds it reminded me of Aghast and B°tong) with strange, falling, metallic sounds, and, in the meantime, as if a gentle static noise were also present in the background, and the guitar themes popping up in the background just strengthen the whole thing.
The folkish melodies of Kense change into melancholic string play after which comes a heavy funeral doom theme, followed by a sad piano part. The themes are floating in the embrace of dark ambient mood with massive yet gentle movement throughout the track.

The last one is titled New Aeon. It opens with a deep ghastly mood as if you’re searching the way in a thick forest at night. Aghast’s name came to my mind here too, musically. The flow of sound effects create an eternal cycle, the sounds bubble from the depth and the track has a slightly ecstatic feel to it. The band’s three members all have good musical influences and inspiration so this debut is also alright, unique. Those into abstract, sad, thought-provoking music, that is, the genre itself, this is mandatory but those with an experimental attitude could also give this a try.

Author: ash

Solitude Productions25.10.2009, 14:41

Review
Diabolical Conquest
7.8/10
31.07.2009

Their label describes Opaque Lucidity's self-titled debut as "esoteric ambient/funeral doom." Of those two genres I am only familiar with the latter. Not intimately familiar, but enough to know that OL is definitely not what I would normally consider funeral doom, at least in the sense of Catacombs, Esoteric, Skepticism or Ahab.

No, this is funeral doom without the doom and extremely dark esoteric ambient. Which means heavy, drifting ambient compositions far closer in tone and sound to Troum or Encomiast than Beyond Black Void or Until Death Overtakes Me. If it wasn't for the low doom death growls this would have nothing in common with funeral doom, or heavy metal really, at all, even in the most abstracted sense. Despite the lack of overt or even sublime doom, I like this and find it a relatively enjoyable listen. That complete lack of "metal" might make this a tough sell to most metal fans. Because while this album is heavy, it's a heaviness not derived from tuning down or slowing down, instead the heaviness comes from emptiness and negative space in the compositions, the tones and notes given weight by time and length. Dark ambient is usually a love it or hate it proposition for most people, and OL is no different. There is nothing accessible about this four song release (especially since all the writing is in Russian!), just long, sustained tones and the occasional deathly growl: music for the easily bored this is definitely not.

And there really isn't much more I can say about OL's self-titled. If you're familiar with, and enjoy as I do, the works of Troum, Tim Hecker, Aidan Baker you'll probably really like this album. If you get this expecting something like Torture Wheel, Fall of the Grey-Winged One or Sunn, you're likely to be quite disappointed.